Foreign Language Learning: An Econometric Analysis

“The paper is devoted to an econometric analysis of learning foreign languages in all parts of the world. Our sample covers 193 countries and 13 important languages. Five factors significantly explain learning: the world population of native speakers of the home language, literacy, the world population of speakers of the target language, trade with foreign speakers of the target language, and the linguistic distance between the home language and the target language.”

Highlights :

An econometric analysis of learning foreign languages in all parts of the world.

New dataset that covers 193 countries and 13 important languages.

Trade deserves special emphasis on the influence of foreign language learning